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Thursday, June 16, 2016

Have you seen this incredible Middle School Choir teacher?!?

A few weeks ago, I wrote a blog post about the importance of having fun with our middle school beginners.

Here is the link.I wrote the article in response to a post I saw about "fun" in the choral music classroom. The post seemed to suggest that fun wasn't really that important for our middle school beginners, and after teaching public school middle school beginners for 24 years, I wholeheartedly disagree.

Here is a small list of things/ideas/quotes that I've heard over the years that I believe stand between many of us and our ability to reach the true beginning singer in the middle school choral classroom.

*(To the students)...."The music you like is not real music".

*There is only one way to sing. Chest voice is bad for girls.

*It isn't a good school. I am not teaching there.

*These kids don't want to be here. They've been dumped in my classroom.

*Every single note and rhythm must be sung absolutely perfectly always. No exceptions regardless of style.

*This foreign word is pronounced THIS way. Because your choir didn't do it this way, I'm going to deduct in diction on your adjudication...(should be followed by..."Even though I've never been to or sung in the country of origin of the word about which I speak and deduct.")

*I NEVER sing pop music.

Two days after I created that blog post, my niece forwarded me a video of this amazing group of middle school children who are "dabbing" and singing "Watch me" by Silento...sounding fabulous and having a great time doing it.

...the uninhibited joy in their faces...the rhythmic precision in their movement...they are singing AND moving AND not rushing the beat! And listen to them! They sound amazing. They are singing a pop song with beautiful, appropriate tone for this age group.

Most importantly, they are having an experience they will always remember because they have a classically trained teacher who also understands how to connect to what is culturally important to the students she teaches, and she teaches it effectively.

The moment I saw this video, I said "Bingo! This is a great teacher who is reaching all of these beginners and turning them on to singing and performing."

Every middle school beginning singer deserves to have an Andrea Squires in front of them.

...Which is why I was so taken back when I saw the criticism trickling in from our ranks via social media.

"Can't you teach them better literature?"

"This song is inappropriate."

On my own Facebook page recently, someone wrote, "Yes. I went to my elementary feeder teacher's program. She taught this to her kids, and I hated it."

I had to delete the comment.

Ok people. We've all got our European based music degrees. They are a dime a dozen. Many people get them and never teach because they can't. Andrea Squires has the degrees, and she can....and not only can she, but she does it every single day.We need to learn from her.

Let's stop criticizing her and every other teacher who wavers from the singular European Classical model we were taught when we were ages 18-22. I am thrilled that I was taught to how to sing in 3/8 time by my professors. Thank you. Now, it is time to teach real children in real public school classrooms from a variety of backgrounds who like a variety of music styles. Heck...they might even like the more classical styles that some of us like if we teach it right...and if we meet them in the middle...um...so to speak.

We've all sung "high music". We've all made excuses for why we can perform this or that piece of "high music" even though the subject matter is iffy. We make our excuses for doing it because it's old.

Listen...when Beethoven started going all "romantic" on us, people said his music made women "hot" and was inappropriate.

Stop.

...and LOOK at these middle school children's faces again. Watch them!
She is reaching them. It's clear. ...and they are loving it.

I was so impacted by this fantastic teacher that I reached out to her to ask her some questions about this incredible journey, and she graciously agreed to speak with me. Here is the interview:

1) Where do
you teach?

I
teach at Desert Canyon Middle School in Scottsdale, AZ. 2) Where did you go to university?Highest degree?

I
obtained my Bachelor of Arts degree in Voice Performance at SUNY Geneseo and my
Master’s degree in Choral Music Education from Arizona State University.

3 3) How many students are currently in your middle
school choir? I have 210 students in grades 6,7, and 8
grade which is 40% of the school population.

4) How long have you taught middle school choir? I just finished my 10th year teaching and all 10 of those
years have been at Desert Canyon Middle School.

5) Please share the details about the video of your
middle school choral music students that recently went viral.

A)
At the beginning of each year, I have a process that I use to teach my 6th
grade students how to be choir members. I tweak the process every year
depending on the needs of the class but the sequence I use to teach the
students all the things I hope they will know as a result of being in 6th grade
choir hasn’t changed too much over the years. We have our first concert in
October and our second concert in February. All through the year I have lots of
student leaders help with certain areas of the class, such as teaching
mini-lessons, leading hand sign activities or conducting games. I don’t give
the 6th graders a choice in repertoire for the first two concerts because I feel
like I must choose music that will meet specific goals and there is so little
time to do that. After our second concert, I do ask for input from the students
on a piece they’d like to perform. Sometimes I ask the students to write their
ideas on a piece of paper and hand that in, sometimes we have a class
discussion. I explain that we have to be able to purchase a choral arrangement
of a song and that they should think of songs that would sound good in a choral
setting, not just a solo setting.

The
idea for “Watch Me” came about quite naturally! It is a popular song that kids
are used to hearing at dances, birthday parties, and on social media. Add in
the interactive aspect of the dance moves and you have a song that kids love. I
think the students suggested the song to me in December or January because the
song had been featured on our school’s video announcements. We have daily
student-run announcements and they have featured students doing “The Whip” as a
Fun Friday clip. The kids thought it would be funny if I were on the
announcements so I did that at least 3 times over the course of the year! The
kids know I am a terrible dancer but I pretend that I think I am amazing and
they play along. It has become a running joke at school with kids saying things
like *deadpan*, “Ms. Squires, when will you be offering a dance class?” When
the students first brought up singing “Watch Me,” I said, “I don’t think our
choir can pull that off. None of us sound like hip hop artists...”They brought it up several times and asked,
at the least, if we could incorporate the “dab” dance move into a song. So when
I was driving home on my hour long commute, I got the idea to do a classical
version of the song. I am always singing pop songs in a classical style to make
people laugh so why not do this with the kids? It would be the perfect
opportunity to teach a lesson in style and how elements of rhythm, harmony,
vocal color and instrumentation can change the style of a song!

I
bought 60 copies of “Watch Me” on musicnotes.com and sent it to my accompanist.
The piano part is simply a two measure ostinato and I asked her to play it
classically and with a light touch. I came up with some harmony and the idea of
adding melody and harmony for the chorus and we were off and running. I showed
the students this arrangement of “Call Me Maybe” for orchestra and choir to set
the tone: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFVhSDQmIxs

They
loved it! They saw the irony in hearing a pop song sung with harmony, perfect
diction, and dynamics.I asked if they
thought we could do “Watch Me” in this style. For the next 6 weeks we worked
on: learning about syncopation (the “bop” section) and recognizing if the notes
were ON the beat or on the AND of a beat; we discussed the use of syncopated
rhythms in hip hop music; how to build a minor triad; how to change tone color
using our vocal technique; and of course adding movement. Once we started
adding movement the kids couldn’t stop laughing and it took us over a week to
get the good tone back. They understood why we had to pretend to take ourselves
seriously, but it took some work to pull off. Some of the moves were copied
from the music video and some the kids came up with. It was a group effort!

It
was important for me to include a song of the students’ choice at the last
concert, especially, because the other two songs they performed were difficult
and the students learned on counting numbers and solfege, mostly a capella. I
used the song to add variety to class and show there are different ways to have
fun. Yes, it is fun to sound good and have a clean performance, but it is also
fun for 6th graders to sing pop music and let loose! In addition, I want the
parent community to be entertained at our concerts. If we cover rock, pop,
classical, jazz, spirituals and musical theatre, there will be something for
everyone. While it is my job to expose them to repertoire they may not find on
their own, it is important that they are stakeholders in their learning and I
want them to know I value their opinions and suggestions. The choir doesn’t
belong to me, it belongs to us all.

B)
The night of the concert (Thursday, May 19th) an older sibling posted a 20
second clip of the performance to her Twitter account. By the next morning it
had thousands of retweets. Even Silento, the original performing artist, shared
it and said, “Tell them I said thanks.” By Friday night it had 10K likes.
Silento shared a longer video of the performance over the weekend on his
Instagram.The students and parents were
emailing me updates over the weekend, giddy with excitement. Our local Fox station
came to our school on Tuesday and did a great story on the performance and that
went viral, too. It was everywhere I turned on the internet. At first the
students were excited but then they started reading the mean comments
everywhere ranging from “I’ve never wanted to kill myself until I saw this
video” to violent comments against me and our school. I told the kids that
people just say things to get attention on the internet and they get away with
saying really terrible things because it is anonymous. We are on summer break
now so I hope they are all doing okay! The response was positive from our
administration. I only heard from 2 other teachers on campus saying
congratulations. It could be that it was the last week of school and everyone
was busy. The kids hope we get asked to go on Ellen. :)

C)My first interaction
with the choral community regarding “going viral” was a person on the Facebook
page “I’m a Choir Director” sharing the short Twitter clip with a caption,
“Thoughts?” The first three responses were, “I’ve now seen it all,” “This is
abhorrent,” and “Ummmmm, NO!” Now mind you, I did not seek this out; it showed
up in my newsfeed. It stung. I jumped on right away to defend myself. I have
worked hard in the last 10 years to provide a solid education and experience
for my students and it was hard to have my work judged so harshly based on a 20
second clip. I also received emails asking, “Why don’t you teach them something
meaningful? What are you doing??” I was surprised that people didn’t see it as
fun and funny like I did and at the very least, didn’t come to the conclusion,
“Hey, they sound pretty good so she’s probably teaching them other stuff.”
Several people defended me and agreed with my choice and I started to feel
better. Braeden Ayres posted a vlog reaction that was really positive and is
willing to write a piece for us! Several people, including you, reached out to
me as well to say that they saw the value in including diverse repertoire and
giving students autonomy in the classroom. So that has been good to hear, and
validating. I don’t think any music educator could convince me that
including popular music in the curriculum is bad for the kids. Over the course
of 6 weeks I watch my students become performers.
They were already good singers and good readers but to watch them become
animated and convincing performers was so rewarding. These middle schoolers are
miles ahead of where I was as an 18 year old voice major and I think that is a
skill they can use in other areas of their life.

6) How has
this experience impacted you and your students?Are you students excited about what has
occurred?Do you think this experience will
impact the size of your choral music program?If so, how and why?Would you do
it again?Why or why not?

I am
not sure if it will affect the size of the program. We already have a good
chunk of the school in choir but I’d be surprised if it didn’t attract a few
more kids, especially boys. There were lots of confident boys in the 6th grade
choir and the incoming students see that and feel like it would be cool to give
choir a try! I started an after school Men’s Choir 2 years ago and we have 20
boys in that!

Part 2:

7) Do you
participate in choral music adjudicated festivals?If so, what ratings have you and your
students received over the years?Go
into as much detail as you wish.

Each
year in the spring, all three 7th and 8th grade choirs participate in an
adjudicated festival. The auditioned treble group sings alone and gets a Gold
rating each year with a score usually between a 97-99. I am equally proud of
the two non-auditioned classes which also receive a Gold rating and typically
score around 95. In addition, the auditioned group participates in the state
ACDA junior high festival and always takes a superior rating. They were invited
to sing at the Arizona Music Educators Association conference in 2011 and 2014.
The students and I felt so honored to do that!

8) Do you teach your children to sight sing?Are they adjudicated on sight singing at
their festivals?If so, how have they
done over the years?What is your
approach to teaching music literacy to your beginners?

I am
a huge proponent of teaching sight reading to middle schoolers! My professor at
ASU, Dr. Brook Larson, always told us that the best gift you can give your
students is the ability to sight sing. I start off the year introducing the
scale and playing games to get the students comfortable with intervals. We sing
different solfege patterns and memorize them. I have students come up to the
front of the class and lead hand signs or point at pitches on a staff while the
rest of the class sings. We also use melody and rhythm cards at the beginning
of class nearly every day throughout the year. I begin introducing single lines
of sight reading in October and start adding leaps as the year progresses. By
the end of the year, my students can sight sing lines with leaps of 3rds, 4ths,
and 5ths, though 4ths still prove to be difficult for first year students.
Teaching sight singing allows us to learn music faster and more accurately. We
performed “Art Thou Troubled” right before “Watch Me” at the concert, and we
learned that by clapping all the rhythms on counting numbers and using solfege
to sing the intervals correctly:

10) Have any of your children ever participated in
Allstate chorus?Honors Chorus? Yes!

11) It is
apparent that you have a special relationship with your middle school singers
because of how they so freely expressed themselves in the video.How have you created that dynamic? I think my students know I care about them as musicians
individually, and more importantly, as people. They tell me that I am strict
and have high expectations but they also tell me they think I am fun and funny.
I ask them questions about their lives and always take time to have fun with
them. I’ll do anything to make them laugh! This includes things like using
ridiculous solfege puns, to dancing on the announcements, to making an eraser
collection video for them. I think this encourages them to be more vulnerable
in the rehearsal and dig a little deeper, both in terms of engagement with the
music as well as their daily effort in class. When I make mistakes I say, “Sorry,
my fault!” I tell my kids that although I have many answers, I think there is
still so much to learn about singing and teaching. I want them to know I am on
the journey with them.

12) How has your choral music program grown or
changed in terms of enrollment during your time teaching at your current
school? When I first started at Desert Canyon, I had
about 130 students in choir with a school enrollment of about 700 students.
Even though our school enrollment is in decline due to new charters and private
schools in the area, I now have over 200 students which is almost 40% of our
school population.

13) To what do you attribute that change? I think the choir program has become a point of pride at our
school. Kids want to be a part of something bigger than themselves and while it
takes hard work to get superior ratings, my kids started SINGING better when I
loosened up and started incorporating more movement, games, and choreography
into the program. Their voices freed up, especially on the classical music. The
kids learn how to be comfortable with themselves when we have fun in class and
this shows in their performances. The other kids at school see this and want to
be a part of it!

14) What do you think are the three most important
traits of a middle school choral music educator and why?

1.A middle school teacher
must have a sense of humor. Kids this age are hilarious and it doesn’t matter
if you’re actually funny or not, you have to show them YOUR sense of humor. The
connection you make with your students is crucial! My license plate is SCHOIRS
and the kids think that’s funny. When I made the silly eraser video for the
kids this year, they told me I had to come up with a name for my YouTube
subscribers. I called the kids my Squire-flies (because they light up my
darkness) and it stuck. Of course some will think these things are dumb, but
then you find a different way to connect with those kids!

2.A middle school teacher
must be a hard worker. You cannot stand in front of a middle school class and
wing it. You must be willing to spend time preparing activities, choosing
literature that will teach them how to read and how to sing, and you must be
willing to put in extra time for those non-pitch matchers because at the middle
school level, there will be many of them!

3. A middle school teacher must
have high expectations. While taking physiological limitations for singers this
age into consideration, I know that my students are very intelligent, capable,
curious, enthusiastic and I let them know I expect greatness out of them. They
almost always exceed my expectations! I often hear middle school teachers
talking about how they’ll teach middle school until they can get a high school
gig. I believe the kids can feel that.

If I ever get a chance to watch Andrea Squires teach, I'll make it happen.

And look at those "North/South with your Mouth" positions...from the kids who were taught by the same teacher who taught them "Watch Me"!

Thank you, Andrea Squires, for being my current inspiration for my upcoming 25th school year teaching middle school beginners in the public school setting. You are an angel.Instead of criticizing her for reaching these students, let's all dig a little deeper and ask ourselves how WE can reach our students better. I'm not suggesting that you must teach pop music to your students. "Watch me" will be "old" in a month anyway...but she did, and it worked. She captured the moment of cultural importance for her students because it meant something to them, she maintained appropriate singing style for age group, and most importantly, she EXCITED them about singing and performing....And they will never forget it. What CAN you do? Are you passionate about teaching madrigals? Then, teach them. Go all out. Get the costumes. Gospel? Broadway? Do it! Give them an experience they will never forget.It comes from us...It's OUR passion they remember.

Andrea Squires...Wishing you continued future success at adjudicated festivals....and more importantly....at being able to reach the middle school beginners who land in your classroom each and every year and continuing to be able to excite them about singing "high" music, "pop" music and everything in between. You are an inspiration to me, to other teachers and most importantly, to the students you teach because they don't care whether you've been to the best music school in the country, sung at Carnegie hall, taught 8 part dissonant harmony to 6th graders, or written a dissertation.They only care whether they enjoy the learning process in your classroom.Clearly, your children do.Keep it up.This is exactly why I created S-Cubed Middle School Sight Singing Program for Beginners.

7 comments
:

Thank you for taking the time to write such a wonderful article about a choir teacher that I truly believe is phenomenal. I have worked with Andrea as her accompanist for the past 6 years, and I can tell you that she has had a huge impact on the lives of the children she has taught. I have watched her work wonders and was lucky enough to have my daughter be in her choir at school as well as the Phoenix Children's Chorus, where Andrea also directs. I can honestly say, as a parent and as a musician, that she is a first class act, both in and out of the classroom. Thank you for giving her the recognition she deserves, and for sharing with others what we at DCMS already know - that she's awesome and we're so lucky to have her!

You are welcome! Thank YOU for taking the time to write this personal testimonial to the value of the work she is doing. You know better than I do for all of the reasons you stated above! ...and YES! You ARE lucky to have her! Keep supporting her! Her program is just going to get bigger and bigger because I can tell that she is a "middle school kid magnet"! I am grateful for the inspiration she's given me and so many other teachers who need an occasional shot in the arm to keep finding new ways to help this unique age group thrive!

Dale, this was a great article for an amazing teacher. My son was in the 7th/8th grade choir and in the advanced men's choir. She made quite the impact on him. My daughter who is in 5th grade is already making plans to be in choir with Mrs. Squires. We are truly lucky to have her at Desert Canyon.

Dale, this was a great article for an amazing teacher. My son was in the 7th/8th grade choir and in the advanced men's choir. She made quite the impact on him. My daughter who is in 5th grade is already making plans to be in choir with Mrs. Squires. We are truly lucky to have her at Desert Canyon.

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